Rupee depreciation partly responsible for increase in raw material expenditure: T Jagannathan, TTK Prestige

In an interview with ET Now, T Jagannathan, Chairman, TTK Prestige, talks about the company's Q3 numbers. Excerpts:

ET Now: Can you walk us through your Q3 numbers and tell us why we are seeing an interest cost higher by 14 times.

T Jagannathan: No, the interest cost is per plan. I had told the market that we were investing Rs 225 crores in capex. This year we will borrow about Rs 120 crores of debt and we will repay next year and it is in line with expectations.

ET Now: One area of concern is that your raw material expenditure has gone up by 42%. Can you explain that?

T Jagannathan: It is partly because of the rupee depreciation against the dollar. We import about 40% of our sales and unfortunately the dollar has affected us this quarter. We have taken price revisions and the next quarter, margins will improve again.

ET Now: To the extent that rupee is seen stabilising, should we expect that this picture will improve going forward in the next couple of quarters?

T Jagannathan: Yes, it will. It will improve in the next quarter.

ET Now: Can you tell us where you see margins stabilising in the coming quarters?

T Jagannathan: Around 16%.

ET Now: Recently you had stated that a lot of foreign players are interested in Indian kitchen appliances market and you are in talks with about 20 of them for an entry in the market. Can you give us more details on the same?

T Jagannathan: We are in talks with a lot of people who are interested in coming to India. Their first choice is us because we are the biggest player in the business. I am afraid I cannot give you any details till it is finalised. I have to inform the stock exchange first.